News 2019

UNIGE researchers demonstrate that far from protecting Americans from international competition, the protectionism put in place by President Donald Trump increases unemployment. The protectionist policy of US President Donald Trump is criticized on all sides around the world, but seems to suit the Americans, who see this economic model as protecting their interests.

Thanks to their expertise in single-molecule imaging of RNAs, researchers from the group of Jeff Chao at the FMI helped to reveal the biological mechanism of a small molecule that restricts Ewing's sarcoma cell growth. The study - published - is further evidence that each step of the gene expression pathway may be druggable, and a great example of a Novartis-FMI collaboration.

By Udo Bachhiesl, Robert Gaugl, Karthik Subramanya Bhat, Christopher Pansi The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly noticeable and therefore a transformation of our energy system is becoming more and more urgent. The fight against climate change is a global challenge and the electricity sector plays a key role in this transformation process.

Over the last two decades researchers have been working on a contrast-agent free magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method called Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) for detecting blood flow changes within the brain and other organs. Recent improvements in imaging hardware, new strategies for efficient data sampling and sophisticated reconstruction algorithms have now brought the application out of research into clinical practice.

The 'AI Chairs' aim to offer researchers substantial resources to build a team and carry out an ambitious project whose visible impact is expected. A multi-year program of 40 Chairs in Artificial Intelligence is one of the measures under this research component, which was presented on November 2018 by the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the Secretary of State for Digital Technology.

Gold nanoparticles, which are supposed to be stable in biological environments, can be degraded inside cells. This research conducted by teams from the CNRS, l'Université de Paris, Sorbonne Université, and l'Université de Strasbourg will be published in PNAS on December 16 2019, and reveals the ability of cells to metabolize gold, which is nevertheless not essential for their functioning.

The impact of an asteroid or comet is acknowledged as the principal cause of the mass extinction that killed off most dinosaurs and about three-quarters of the planet's plant and animal species 66 million years ago. But massive volcanic eruptions in India may also have contributed to the extinctions.

Computational biologists at Carnegie Mellon University have devised an algorithm to rapidly sort through mountains of gene expression data to find unexpected phenomena that might merit further study. What's more, the algorithm then re-examines its own output, looking for mistakes it has made and then correcting them.

New technique for observing reaction products offers insights into the chemical mechanisms that formed them. During a chemical reaction, the molecules involved in the reaction gain energy until they reach a "point of no return" known as a transition state. Until now, no one has glimpsed this state, as it lasts for only a few femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second).

MIT study finds that challenges in measuring and mitigating leakage of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, prove pivotal. A new MIT study examines the opposing roles of natural gas in the battle against climate change - as a bridge toward a lower-emissions future, but also a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

A University of Minnesota research team recently developed new methods that will make it significantly faster to produce gene-edited plants. They hope to alleviate a long-standing bottleneck in gene editing and, in the process, make it easier and faster to develop and test new crop varieties with two new approaches described in a paper recently published.

Economists analyze how patients and health care providers value Medicaid. A new analysis of a randomized health insurance program in Oregon sheds light on the value the program has for enrollees and providers alike. The study, by MIT economist Amy Finkelstein and two co-authors, suggests that adults with low incomes value Medicaid at only about 20 cents to 50 cents per dollar of medical spending paid on their behalf.

Between 2007 and 2017, children in eight lowand middle-income countries received, on average, 25 antibiotic prescriptions from birth through age five - up to five times higher than the already high levels observed in high-income settings. Many of the prescriptions are unnecessary and might exacerbate resistance.

Researchers at the University of Manchester in collaboration with CMT theorists (M. Andelkovic, S. Milovanovic, L. Covaci and F. Peeters) have uncovered interesting phenomena when multiple two-dimensional materials are combined into van der Waals heterostructures (layered 'sandwiches' of different materials).

As of this week, a phase one clinical trial to test a potential new Ebola vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is underway in Japan. Fifteen healthy young men* will receive two doses of the experimental vaccine. If the first group tolerates the vaccine, an additional group of up to 20 volunteers will receive a higher dose of the vaccine.

"You missed something yesterday. Tim fell in our pool!" "Now really @Tim?- Thought you didn't want to drink anything"? "Haha tim :D" What sounds like banal chit-chat among a group of young people about what happened at a party is of great interest to linguists at the Institute of German Language and Literature at the University of Münster.

Rice, UTHealth discovery could aid fight against multidrug-resistant VRE  Researchers from Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston spent more than eight years trying to solve a puzzle: How could a deadly superbug known as VRE become resistant to a new antibiotic in less than five years' The answer surprised everyone.

One in three people commit "financial infidelity", with potentially toxic consequences for their relationships, according to a study co-led by UCL which is thought to be the first to investigate the concept. Romantic relationships are built on trust, but partners are not always honest about their financial behaviour - they often hide spending, debt, and savings from one another.

A team of researchers from Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Bochum, and the University of Linz has succeeded in observing the transfer of protons in a hydrogenase reaction. No 391/2019 from Dec 13, 2019 Scientists from Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Bochum, and the University of Linz have found evidence for the design of so-called biomimetic catalysts.

Science enthusiasts and the general public have become accustomed to finding out about cataclysmic events in space such as black holes colliding, as though spotting them was as easy as riding a bike. In fact, scientists only detected ripples from such an event for the first time about four years ago.